Nice job, The same wind came through NC the day before. How did you bend your mirage mast? Bent mine the first day out, low tide Pamlico Sound and hit a rock under water at full sail on reach, forgot to strap back my Mirage Drive. Lucky I did not hurt my rudder or dagger. I was able to straighten mine, it looked a little worse than yours, it tore the rubber on both fins as well. Fixed and kept going the rest of the week!

We were hustling along at speed in the sheltered waters of the shallow lagoon, which was much shallower than I realized because they had a lower than normal tide. The lagoon is a great place to sail when the wind is up and we've done it many times in the past, just not any damage as we experienced this time.

OasisGuy wrote:

You could add some fast paced music to the clip to help with the 'justice' of it all. You could also cut down the sail flap which never sounds good on a video.

I'll pass that on to Cindy - she was dead tired at the end of the day and slipped off before the vid had even posted on YouTube.

I think one of the Aussie guys did the same clip with fast and then slow music to highlight the difference each makes. I know when I did mine the non music version was boring. When I added a bit of up tempo music it just took on a life of it's own.

Our friends at Zero to Cruising were within a few miles of us yesterday and posted the wind speeds that they recorded during that same period - sustained winds of 30 knots and a top recorded gust of 37.4 knots.

Great stuff, I often see video's where they say it's 20+ knot winds but it always looks flat, that showed it was the sort of stuff I always get in 20 knots and love it. When I first started to sail the AI I used to let my sail luff when reefing but now I try to keep a bit more tension on both lines to help stop it from flapping, works quite good and has to give the sail some extra life. With the tandem being so long and the extra drag on the lines it may not be possible but worth the try I would say.A lot of people say dry-suits are over kill, to expensive, etc etc but once you have one, it will be the first thing you go for almost every time due to there comfort and ease of use, keep a bit of a log, temp, conditions etc and what undergarments you wore it help you learn/decide on the day as to what to wear until you become good at judging what will make you more comfortable on the day without having to undo it to remove layers.

What brand did you get and did you get relief zips or valves, valves are very good for the ladies used along with a she-p http://www.she-p.com/(not shepee,org, its slightly different and does not have the seal) for comfort on the run, the valves are expensive but like the suit, once you have it, there is no looking back. As for the guys, if it's just for use on the kayak then the zip is probably cheaper and easier, if you also dive in it them I would get a valve as well.